Is this game as complicated as some would have you believe?

It's a question I often ask myself. Football has always seemed beautifully simple to me. And Football Manager has, honestly, always felt basically quite simple too. You devise your tactic and you play your game. If things aren't going well you work at it and work at it. But the fundamentals remain the same.

However, I recently took a trip over to the Tactics forum. I've always suspected that it's somewhere I should avoid - a land where people turn molehills into mountains and turn the simple game of football into the large hadron collider. It turns out, I was right! Now tactical theory pre-dates Football Manager. So I'm not arguing that a theoretical approach to football tactics has no place in football or in Football Manager. It does and I'm not opposed to people applying them to the game. The problem I have is that, having visited the forum, I now feel as if I'm playing the game wrong. I do what I said earlier - devise my own tactics, hope for the best, try and garner what I can from what happens during matches and always seek to improve. I've never felt like I need to concern myself with tactical theorems, especially the likes of which crop in the Tactics forum.

I know this game can be challenging, but have we really reached a point where we need sweeping tactical theorems to aid us? Am I actually ultimately shooting myself in the foot by playing without recourse to any of the advise on offer?

I'm with you on this one, I've always been one to devise my own simple tactics and stick to them, so my team improves when I sign players of a better standard.

I'd like to think that I have have had reasonable success at this game over the last few years and none of that has been due to the theories provided from the tactics forum. I'd quite like it to stay that way and any success I have I'd like to think is truly my own.

I honestly feel that I could never get anything of value from the Tactics forum because there's so much going on in there. How on Earth could I possibly root out the proverbial needle that is the advice I need from the proverbial haystack that is the forum as a whole?

At the end of the day, there's a tactics editor now and a few other things to tinker with. All of them make sense to me and I can imprint football logic onto them, so I don't see what's so complicated. If my team is struggling, I remain convinced that the answer will be within me to find for myself, be it tactical, morale-based, teamtalk-based or something else. Football is simple. FM is not the great unknowable that some would have you believe.

I would have to agree mostly...it can be pretty simple and you can still achieve some pretty good success with just using simple things...hours of tinkering is not for me, and I suspect it is not for many other people...and sometimes you can overthink these things.

I'm certainly not saying I am always successful, in fact I often struggle to beat the other "big" teams in the matches I play against them, and sometimes I just get outright embarrased by them (I remember being 4-0 down inside 20 mins one time as Man Utd vs Chelsea). I'm sure various tinkering could help me win these games, but to be honest I wouldn't know whether I'm making it worse or better. So I prefer to keep it simple, I often still get the success I need.

hadron collider

Is that the same guy that built the wall?

we need sweeping tactical theorems

Prefer a flat back 4 myself

..................I'll get my coat :o

I'm with you on this one, I've always been one to devise my own simple tactics and stick to them, so my team improves when I sign players of a better standard.

I'd like to think that I have have had reasonable success at this game over the last few years and none of that has been due to the theories provided from the tactics forum. I'd quite like it to stay that way and any success I have I'd like to think is truly my own.

You can look at it in many ways, one way would be: where else are they going to go to get grips with the mechanics in the game? We are not all built alike and not all have the capabilities of 'seeing the light'. Sometimes it requires that a something sparks their understanding, which then will aide in them knowing what to do next. The problem though is the mass confusion that can come from it, especially if the ones explaining it have no idea what they are talking about- so, who is to blame for all this?

But, to the original thread question: right now it looks like a little bit of both...

I always devise my tactics to each player. It dosen't matter if the player is in attack, midfield, or defense, the sliders are always personally adjusted to use his skills to his capacity. My team improves when I get new players that can do more due to their stats. Its a simple and enjoyable way of playing, where I watch the team grow and each player becomes personable and has their own style. Results and expectations are reasonable and usually positive since I'm never making the players do too much outside their abilities. I also get excited when I have an exceptional talent on the team since I can see him making the difference on field. I watch the key moments of each game and get really used to my team's capabilities.